Grandmother to mother, mother to daughter ~ the wish for a daughter’s happiness is both valued and treasured, and still celebrated in this spirit.

The 3rd of March is called Hinamatsuri (Doll’s Festival) and has existed in Japan since the Edo Period (17 – 19 centuries). On this day families pray for the happiness and prosperity of their girls, to ward off evil spirits, and to help ensure that they grow up healthy and beautiful.

A girl’s first “Girls’ Day” is called her Hatzu-Zekku and it is very popular for her to receive a Hina-Ningyo (doll) display. This display can have up to seven tiers with dolls and small furniture. At the top are the dolls of the emperor and empress, with a miniature gilded screen placed behind them, very much like the imperial court.

The dolls are ceremonial dolls, a heritage of the household, many of them handed down from generation to generation. They are…

At McGregor Point on Maui, close to the lighthouse, on Route 30, about one mile from Maalaea Bay, there exists a monument commemorating the spot where 600 Scandinavian immigrants arrived on February 18, 1881 aboard the Norwegian bark “Beta.”

Sometimes called “the forgotten immigrants” more than 600 Norwegian men, women and even some children shipped out from Drammen, Norway in 1880, having signed up to work in ‘paradise’ on the booming sugar plantations in the Sandwich Isles, Kingdom of Hawaii. After a brutal six-month voyage, they went mostly to the island of Maui.

Captain Christian L’Orange, an early plantation owner, was commissioned by King Kalakaua to bring the Norwegians to the islands. But there was discontent and controversy from the very start when they found that the labor contracts they signed in Norway, written in Norwegian, were fundamentally different from the contracts presented on arrival, written in English. Many…

“In this diverse society, we should not isolate ourselves socially, politically, economically or physically.”

~Daniel K. Inouye, Senator, U.S. Congress

November 21, 1958: Maui County Board of Supervisors Resolution 84

Representing 42,597 citizens of Maui County the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved Resolution 84, stating that they

“…respectfully request and urge the Congress of the United States to grant immediate statehood to the Territory of Hawaii…”

The Goal was Democracy

Hawaii was officially proclaimed the 50th state of the United States by President Eisenhower on August 21, 1959. The presidential action was followed by the unfurling of a new fifty-star flag, which became official the following Independence Day.

Much of the decades-long opposition to Hawaii statehood came from Southern members of Congress who took a dim view of the mixed racial strains of Hawaii’s population. But in mid-March 1959 Congress approved Hawaii’s statehood bill setting up the required plebiscite and statehood elections. …

“He wishes to increase the happiness and not the wants of his people.”

~Captain Otto Von Kotzebue (1787-1846) Russian Navigator

Although there is some debate as to the precise year of his birth, Hawaiian legends claimed that a great king would one day unite the islands, and that the sign of his birth would be a comet. Halley’s comet was visible from Hawai`i in 1758.

The name Kamehameha means “the one set apart.” For 13 years, from 1782 to 1795, he waged numerous battles to conquer the islands, ultimately uniting the Hawaiian Islands in 1810, becoming the first king, and establishing a dynasty that endured for over a century.

As a leader in restoring the islands, he urged his people to work and to grow food. They said of him,

“He is a farmer, a fisherman, a maker of cloth, a provider for the needy, and a father to the fatherless.”

THE MONTH OF MAY HAS TWO HOLIDAYS THAT CELEBRATE THE SERVICE OF OUR FIGHTING MEN AND WOMEN

Memorial Day, originally known as Decoration Day, commemorates men and women who died while in military service. Originally to honor Union soldiers of the Civil War, the name Memorial Day wasn’t used for the annual May 30th holiday until 1882. In 1968, to create a convenient three-day weekend, the U.S. Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill , moving the celebration to the last Monday of May. Hawaii’s Senator Daniel Inouye, a World War II veteran, has repeatedly introduced measures to return Memorial Day to its traditional date.

More than 2,335 veterans and survivors are buried in Maui Nui veteran’s cemeteries on Lanai, Maui, and Molokai.

Armed Forces Day is celebrated on the third Saturday in May. President Harry S. Truman led the effort to establish a single holiday for citizens to…

The colorful flower cards are thicker than Western-style cards and players enjoy the “smacking” sound they make when slapped together.

In the 18th year of Tenmon (A.D. 1549) when Francisco Xavier landed in Japan from Europe the crew of his ship had carried a set of Hombre, 48-card Portuguese playing cards, which became extremely popular with the Japanese. Through a colorful history of being banned and declared illegal (which did not diminish cardplaying and gambling by the populace) the game of Hanafuda, which combined traditional Japanese games with Western-style playing cards, was developed in the late 1800s.

Entertaining and highly addictive the Hanafuda cards contain no numbers. Instead the 48 cards in the deck use pictures of flowers and plants. The deck is organized into 12 suites, one for each month of the year, and the types of plants represent the months in which they bloom. Hanafuda is commonly played in Hawaii and South Korea, though under different names. In Hawaii it is called Sakura, Hanafura, and Higobana.

Just ask any local or longtime resident about this card game and you will likely invoke wonderful memories of fun that could go on for hours, and hours, and hours!

Shangri-La is a fictional place described as a mystical, harmonious valley in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton, and has become synonymous with any earthly paradise ~ a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world.

Like Shangri La the Hawaiian Islands may be the most isolated archipelago on earth, yet contain all the earth’s terrestrial biomes, except for tundra.

The climate of a region determines what plants will grow, and what animals will inhabit it. All three: climate, plants and animals are interwoven to create the fabric of a biome. A biome is a large geographical area in which life is adapted to that particular environment.

For such a small area Hawai`i has a wide variety of biomes due to a variety of factors including topography and locations. Each biome consists of many ecosystems whose communities have adapted to the small differences in climate and the environment inside the biome.

ABOUT MAUI NUI…

Maui Nui embraces the islands of Kaho'olawe, Lanai, Maui, and Molokai. These posts offer glimpses of this unique place through informative articles about its history, its environment, its communities, and its people.